The haunting photo on the cover of this menu is made even spookier by tilting it parallel to the diagonal borders rather than perpendicular to the vertical borders, which means all the water should be running off to the left. We’ve seen this design before on a 1938 Tonquin Valley menu. Today’s menu is also dated 1938.

Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this menu, which was provided by Brian Leiteritz.

The back cover says nothing about Maligne Lake but instead describes the railroad’s streamlined 6400-class locomotives. These were introduced in 1936 and operated until 1960. Locomotive 6400 itself is preserved in an Ottawa museum.

The a la carte menu has many differences from the 1936 menu shown here yesterday. While many items were changed, prices of items that did not change were about 20 percent lower in 1938 than in 1936. According to the Bank of Canada, that nation experienced 7 percent inflation, not deflation, between 1936 and 1938, so the lower prices may have been Canadian National’s attempt to make dining cars appear more user friendly.